Street Machine Australia – September 2019

B

UILDING a classic car, whether

modified or stock, takes a huge

commitment of time and money, and

Jason Pellett knows this all too well

after building his super-smooth HT

Kingswood. An eight-year odyssey,

Jason did the whole lot, start to finish, in his

suburban double garage after buying the HT

already blown apart.

“My wife Ashley and I bought the HT from

Albion Park eight years ago,” says Jason. “It

was just a six-pot, column-auto car that had

been sandblasted and completely pulled

apart before it was going to be done up. But

then they realised how much it would cost to

do up, so they offloaded it to me.

“It took three trips to get all the parts home!

The HT was originally going to be Ashley’s

project car, until we decided to add twin boys

to our family and the Kingswood sat around

for two years after they were born.”

A panel beater by trade, Jason had the shell

pin-straight and clean, before smoothing out

a bunch of OE body features like the spare

wheel well, antenna and body moulds. He

also tubbed the rear wheel wells to the rails,

smoothed the engine bay, firewall and chassis

rails, blended the cowl panel into the firewall,

and made a smooth radiator support panel.

“There are a lot of modifications that people

will never see unless they know these cars

and they’re having a close look,” Jason says. “I

even welded up the holes in the bonnet frame

and smoothed them out. Then, after I installed

the fibreglass reverse-cowl scoop, I didn’t like

seeing the fibreglass from underneath, so I

covered all that, too.”

Once he was happy with the tinwork,

Jason got a custom-mixed batch of bright

white DeBeer 2K paint and laid down the

ice cream-fresh paint. “I painted the car at

home,” he says. “With Ashley and the boys

behind me, we finished it in the backyard. The

first time the HT left the shed it was 100 per

cent complete and it never left our backyard

in eight years.”

Resurrection Trim re-covered the factory

bench seats and door cards in fresh black

vinyl trim, while Jason added hot rod gauges

to the custom sheet-metal dash he made.

The bespoke dash fascia works in with the

custom-made metal glovebox and console he

whipped up at the same time, while a billet

tiller and column shifter keep a classic finish.

Powering the more-door is a warmed-over

red 308 iron lion that Jason had lying around.

“I had the 308 from a previous ute I had,

so I got my father-in-law Todd Ducker to

rebuild it with some flat-top pistons and a

lumpy Crow 286/290 cam,” Jason says. “I

THE HT IS A TRIBUTE TO MY LATE BROTHER MICHAEL, AS HE NEVER

HAD A CHANCE TO BUILD A CAR BEFORE HE PASSED AWAY AT AGE 16

ROLLING: Showwheels

Streeters measuring 20x8.5

up front and 20x10 out back

match the blacked-out trim and

bumpers, and sit perfectly in the

wheelarches thanks to 3in-lower

coil springs from Lovells up front

and 4in-lower reset leaves in

the rear, with Gabriel shocks

controlling boings